|
"Salem.....Where a Warm Welcome Awaits You"
|
|
|
GOD'S PEACE IN A VIOLENT WORLD
(The following sermon was preached by Pastor Barbara Melosh on December 24th, 2006.)
Grace and peace to you, this holy night. The Christmas story from Luke, as we hear it this night, is deeply familiar to most of us here. Whenever I hear it, I remember the crèche we unpacked every year when I was a child, with straw glued to the stable floor, and small figures to arrange—Mary and Joseph, bent over the manger; the shepherds with their crooks, and brightly painted wise men in their robes and crowns. The baby Jesus, with one hand chewed by one of us as a toddler some forgotten year before, and the three-legged donkey that someone had stepped on, another year. We hear the Christmas story through the filter of our own memories of Christmas, accompanied by the refrains of Christmas carols. It’s a story we see in our mind’s eye through the images of painting and greeting cards, crèches and ornaments; this year, for some, through the new film “The Nativity.” For many, it’s a story that makes us nostalgic for our remembered—or imagined—childhood; a time of wonder and openness to mystery; a time of expectation as yet untouched by loss, a time of innocence and trust. We come here this night, many of us, longing for that wonder. We hear the familiar words, “Peace on earth”, and we long for peace in our world, peace in our neighborhoods, peace in our households, peace in our hearts. Or, at least, for a moment of peace—here where music touches our yearning hearts, where candlelight hides our silent tears, where we hear once again words of promise to keep fresh the memory and the hope of peace. We cherish these moments of peace, and maybe all the more because as adults we are aware that they are fleeting. But what then? Our world today is not a peaceful place, and it never was. So let us turn from the Christmas story as we remember it. With the shepherds, let us go now to Bethlehem, and see this thing that has taken place. Let us go to Bethlehem, to hear this story as it echoes over the distance of many centuries. Let us go to Bethlehem, to hear this story as good news of God with us in a violent world. Bethlehem—we will sing of it in a few minutes, in that beloved carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” I remember one Christmas eve when I was a young adult, singing that carol and then leaving the midnight service to find the snow falling softly, the night still under silent stars, the light from the church shining in dark streets—that night in northern New Jersey, recalling the peace of the city of David on that holy night of Christ’s birth. But Bethlehem is not a peaceful place in our world today. It is on the occupied west bank—bitterly contested terrain in the struggle between Israel and Palestine, both claiming the same blood-soaked land. Once, Bethlehem was host to over 90,000 pilgrims a month; this December, only 2,500 came to visit the city of David. The Church of the Nativity—on the place where Jesus was born, by tradition—was the site of a bloody siege a few years ago. The city itself is increasingly isolated and embattled, cut off by the Israeli security fence, the wall Israel believes necessary to protect itself from terrorist attacks. “O little town of Bethlehem”—a Christian leader visiting this week pronounced that the city of David is a “city of conflict and death.” Bethlehem is not a peaceful place today. And it was not a peaceful place on the night when Christ was born. Luke tells the story of that holy night against a backdrop of war and violence. It was the time of the pax Romana, so called—the peace established and ruthlessly enforced by the mighty power of the Roman Empire. Judea, and Bethlehem within it, was an occupied territory then, as it is again now. The Christmas story begins by drawing the political coordinates of that world. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” These registrations were done so the Roman empire could collect tribute—an act of domination, and one deeply resented by citizens of occupied Judea, for paying it was an act of submission to the rule of Rome. Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem under compulsion of the Roman empire, and in the shadow of the paranoid and violent king Herod. And yet—in Bethlehem that night a child is born who will challenge that empire and all the powers and principalities of this world. Luke’s story directly proclaims that challenge. Every title used for Jesus is a slap at the Roman empire. “Messiah”—Augustus declared he was the anointed one, the messiah. In the line of Caesar, he was considered divine—a god. He called himself “savior”, and others called him “Lord.” Born into that violent world, the Christ child lies in a manger already standing in the shadow of the cross. Go now to Bethlehem, to look into the face of the holy child. There in the manger, behold the mystery and wonder of Christmas—God with us. God who came down to us, born a vulnerable child in a violent place. God who comes still to us today, in all our vulnerability, in all our violence. God with us—born in us this day. May the peace of God fill you this holy night.
|
|
E-mail the
Salem
webmaster with
questions or comments about this web site.
|